This Incovenient 6-Pound Phone Case Could Curb Your Smartphone Addiction
A neuroscience startup has created a 6-pound smartphone case that is so heavy and cumbersome to use that it should limit most people’s screentime by around half. Smartphone cases are usually light and slick by design, but Matter Neuroscience decided to go the opposite way, creating perhaps the heaviest and chunkiest phone case money can […]
AcryPhone – A Phone-Shaped Slab of Acrylic to Help You Beat Smartphone Addiction
The AcryPhone is a rudimentary device designed to mimic the look and feel of a smartphone in order to help users conquer their handheld addiction. As much as we try to deny it, most of us are addicted to smartphones. We try to limit the time we spend looking at them, but we constantly find […]
14-Year-Old Forced to Do House Chores Reports His Father to Police for “Illegal Child Labor”
Chinese media recently reported the case of a 14-year-old boy who shocked police when he accused his father of “illegal child labor”, because he had been forced to do chores around the house. The bizarre incident allegedly took place this week in Ma’anshan, China’s Anhui province. Sick of seeing his son with his hands and […]
Restaurant Offers Free Pizza to Customers Who Lock Away Their Smartphones
Smartphone addiction is getting so bad that restaurants are offering customers free food if they agree to part with their handhelds for the duration of their meal. Curry Pizza Company, a pizza place in Fresno, California, is offering customers a “Talk to Each Other Discount”, which requires customers to agree to have their smartphones locked […]
This Company Will Pay You $100,000 to Give Up Your Smartphone for a Year
Enhanced water company Vitaminwater recently launched a contest challenging entrants to give up their smartphones and tablets for a whole year. That’s a tough thing to do in this day and age, but the Coca Cola-owned company is ready to make it worth your while by putting up a $100,000 prize. Vitaminwater’s #nophoneforayear challenge requires entrants […]
Finnish Cocktail Bar Bans the Use of Smartphones To Encourage Real-World Social Interaction
Chihuahua Julep, a cocktail bar that opened in central Helsinki, Finland, in August, has banned patrons from using smartphones inside the venue to encourage real-world social interaction. Initially, the owners of Chihuahua Julep only encouraged visitors to put their smartphones away so that the light from their screens wouldn’t ruin the bar’s ambience, but after […]
Woman Left with Paralyzed Fingers After Playing on Her Phone for a Week Straight
A Chinese woman recently found herself unable to use the fingers on her right hand after spending her entire week-long vacation playing video games on her smartphone. The unnamed woman from Changsha, in China’s Hunan province, reportedly took a week off from work and spent all that time playing on her smartphone. According to a […]
Chinese City Introduces Special Walkway for Smartphone-Using Zombies
Authorities in the Chinese city of Xi’an recently inaugurated a special sidewalk lane designed for “phubbers” – people who walk while staring at their smartphones and ignore everything around them. Painted red, green and blue and featuring pictures of smartphones, the special lane is located on the busy Yanta Roan, in Xi’an, and is 80cm wide […]
Designer Creates “Substitute Phone” to Help People Battle Smartphone Addiction
Austrian designer Klemens Schillinger has created a therapeutic replacement for smartphones called Substitute Phones. The Vienna-based designer made a series of five of these non-devices which feature a row of stone beads to imitate various motions typical to smartphone use, such as scrolling, zooming, and swiping. By using stone beads to emulate interaction with a […]
The NoPhone Air – Plastic Phone Packaging with Nothing but Air Inside
While millions of people around the world eagerly awaited the release of Apples’s new iPhone 7, dozens of attendants at the Fireside Gathering – a no-phone, no-reception event held at a summer camp two hours west of Ottawa – had to make due with a “revolutionary NoPhone Air, a simple phone package with nothing but […]
Smart Box Combats Smartphone Addiction by Allowing You to Lock Away Your Phone for a Set Period of Time
Smartphone addiction is a growing problem that often interferes with our personal and professional lives. DistractaGone is an ingenious solution that allows you to lock up your phone in a box that only opens after a set period of time, offering you a period without constant distraction. Trying to get some work done, enjoying dinner […]